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A heartbroken father has spoken out against legal highs after his son was found dead with seven empty packets in front of him.

Joel Fox’s body was discovered at his flat in Soberton Road, Havant, on October 16. The father-of-two was just 45 and had suffered mental illness, including psychosis, for 20 years.

Joel Fox

His father, Raymond Fox, from Denmead, has called for action to be taken against the shops that sold his son the lethal legal highs as he claims they knew that Joel was mentally ill.

The 65-year-old has spoken out after reading The News’ campaign Legal Highs: Only Lows, which is calling for a change in law and is raising awareness of the drugs’ devastating consequences.

Mr Fox said: ‘When Joel was found, he was turned over with a big smile on his face and he had seven empty packets in front of him.’

Mr Fox said his son, a former pupil at Warblington School in Havant, was diagnosed with psychosis in 1994 at St James’ Hospital in Portsmouth following a breakdown.

When Joel was found, he was turned over with a big smile on his face and he had seven empty packets in front of him

Father Raymond Fox

Since then, he spent time at Elmleigh, a mental health facility in Havant, and at Ravenswood House, in Knowle, but he was living in the community with carer supervision when he took the overdose. It is not known if it was accidental or not.

Mr Fox said Joel turned to legal highs to cope with his illness.

He said: ‘He could sometimes be very up the pole, shouting, but when he got like that with me I would walk off. It was the strength of his psychosis.

‘He was the nicest, sweetest lad 95 per cent of the time but he was mentally disabled and that was the sad part of it all – that they would sell legal highs to him knowing the state he was in.’

Mr Fox, an electrical fitter, said that although Joel’s carers were very good, they were too stretched and he wanted to see the tax made by the government from the sale of legal highs ploughed back into mental heath provision.

He also said he wanted to see a ‘Joel’s Law’ brought in that would prevent head shops from selling to people who were registered as being mentally ill.